Taking dice away from the players

[Mark CMG]

So many die rolls: perception, saves, initiative, etc seem to go better under the purview of the DM, without player interaction.

I agree. So many of the rolls where the PC would not be aware of the consequences immediately, or not aware of failure, or even not aware that a roll needed to take place are better in the hands of the DM/GM for the sake of tension and surprise. There is something to be said for running a game where all rolls are handled behind the screen, encouraging players to invest more in their RPing or, at the least, in their description of their actions.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I would not do this myself. As a GM I handle enough without adding your char sheets and complete recorde keeping to that list. I am not an MMO server, you want to play then you take your share of the workload.

As a player I also would not like this as it seems to take you out of the combat. At that point your an NPC with a feeling of "The GM will do what he wants" and if he is showing the dice rolls why am I not rolling? I would feel like a glorified NPC I was allowed to run when it was not important to do so. No thanks.

 

[amerigoV]

There is something to be said for running a game where all rolls are handled behind the screen,

There is something to be said - "In need of one more player" - outside of pbp and perhaps a one-shot, I would have no interest in this. Dice are fun and I want the ability to repremand them when they fail me. Plus I play a game where die explode/ace - there is something magical at the table when that happens. I would hate to take that out of their hands.

I have no problem with the GM doing spot/sneak rolls as I agree that adds to the game. I do that myself sometimes when I GM.

As others said, as a GM I would hate doing all the rolls - thats more time with me looking down behind the screen instead of focusing on the players/table.

 

[pawsplay]

I have when doing pbp or chat-based games.

 

[Guest 85555]

When I ran Ravenloft the first few times, I rolled damage for the players and kept track of the damage they took. I did so, in order to heighten the suspense (they never really knew how much damage they did, or how many hit points they had left exactly---though I tried to convey this descriptively). My personal experience was taking the dice out of their hand, made most of my players feel less involved in the game. Some did like this approach. But others felt too much like observers.

 

[Jhaelen]

I wonder...

Has anyone ever attempted to DM a game session where the players JUST roleplayed? They don't roll dice at all. You roll all the dice, do all the math for them, and just roleplay it with them?

Well, yes, but not D&D. Imho, D&D isn't particularly well suited to for this approach. At least during combat, the players should probably roll their own dice.

For roleplaying encounters and skill challenges it would probably work well, though.

 

[mkill]

Also, as a player, I LIKE rolling dice. If the DM would announce something like "I roll all the dice", I'd be like... hey, why do you get all the fun?"

For me, it would feel like a DM power grab. I don't like DMs who don't respect the few elements of the game that I control as a player. These elements are:
* My character (build, personality)
* His actions
* His results (his dice rolls)

Consider your underlying motivation. If you want to encourage your players to a more narrative style, to make them describe their actions rather than saying "I rolled a 15!", taking away their dice might be an interesting learning experience. Just don't expect them to be happy about it.

If you disregard that, I still agree that D&D is too dice-heavy for this approach. And it's not just that you roll dice a lot. The whole game is designed to steer the player to certain fantasy archetypes and ideas. The game gives you a class, it gives you powers, it gives you dungeon walls, and it expects you to work within these constraints. It's not impossible to do, but a free-form, rules-lite RPG with a narrative approach would be a lot better for this.

 

[Umbran]

For me, it would feel like a DM power grab. I don't like DMs who don't respect the few elements of the game that I control as a player.

Well, if your first thoughts are "power grab" and "lack of respect" then I'd start to wonder what the trust issue is between you and your GM. Unless he's dedicated to playing only agreed-upon published adventures as written, there's no real question about "power". The GM can always win in a power contest with players. You have characters written to certain rules, and the GM has... the rest of the universe built to his specification. Power-wise, you lose, period. End of discussion.

Demonstrating that power would, of course, mean he'd soon have no players, but that doesn't change how the GM has no need to "grab" power from players. He's already got more power than any player.

This is not an ego contest to see who has the most power. It's a play style choice.

I understand that there's some fun to be had rolling dice. But there's also some fun to be had in the unknown - not knowing to the last iota exactly what you're capable of accomplishing. There's an enhancement to tension and the feeling of risk you can't know if you're having a meta-game discussion of exactly how many hit points you have left with your party cleric.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I do this exclusively now.

I got the idea by reading through the example of "how to roleplay" in the Moldvay (1981) D&D basic set. The DM was the only one with a set of dice, and he rolled all the attack and damage rolls, even the players'. I thought that this was very unusual and would place a tremendous burden on the DM.

Then I actually tried it out... and it rocked. With no "toys" at the table to distract and fidget with, the players actually had nothing to focus on except imagining what their characters would do, given the current situation.

Nowadays, I prefer the "blind" method across the board. When I DM the game, I roll all the dice, and I keep all of the players' numerical statistics hidden from them, with the sole exception of Movement rate (that being the only statistic with a numerical value that the characters themselves could conceivably be aware of). In short, the players only know what their characters know: Fred the Fighter has High Strength, Above Average Constitution, Average Dexterity and Intelligence and Wisdom, and Below Average Charisma. At the moment, he's Not Wounded. His experience level goes from Veteran to Warrior to Swordmaster to Hero to Swashbuckler, etc., etc. The character certainly doesn't know what his THAC0 or his Save vs. Death Ray might be, so those numbers are hidden safely behind my DM's screen.

It heightens the immersion and pretty much stunts all meta-gaming. This is a very good thing in a role-playing game (although I can see why one wouldn't like it very much in a miniatures skirmish game).

 

[NewJeffCT]

Nobody in my group would want me to roll dice for them - I've been DMing mostly the same group for three years now, and my die rolling is famously bad...

However, about 1 encounter in 10, I have just the opposite luck and will get several crits and kill a PC or two. Thankfully, at higher levels, death is just an inconvenience to the players (Revivify was used regularly in my 3.5 campaign that ended at the beginning of this year...)

That said, I think if I didn't want to roll dice, I wouldn't play D&D.